Sports News Written By Sports Fans
The Cleveland Cavaliers released Jawad Williams.
Williams, a former Lakewood St. Edward star’s second 10-day contract expired on Sunday with the Cavs, whose only option would be to sign him for the remainder of the season.  A player can only sign two 10-day deals, per NBA rules.
Williams, who was not drafted, played and won a national championship at North Carolina. He appeared in nine games for Cleveland.  The 25-year-old played in Japan and Israel last year.
Results of an MRI on Andrew Bynum’s right knee showed a tear of the medial collateral ligament. He is expected to miss eight to 12 weeks.
Bynum is the Lakers’ third-leading scorer and second-leading rebounder, averaging 14.0 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks. Prior to the game against Memphis had averaged 26.2 points on 65.3 percent shooting, 13.8 rebounds and 3.20 blocked shots over his previous five games.
“This is a team that went to the Finals last year that we put on the floor, so they’re confident in what they can do,” coach Phil Jackson said at the Lakers’ shootaround Monday afternoon, before they announced the severity of the injury. “We know we’re going to miss his presence, his rebounding ability. But this is a very capable team.”
“There are teams that lost in the Finals that go back and win the next year,” he said. “I think having Andrew in the lineup makes us a dominant team. With him out of the lineup, we’re still a great team. You put him in the mix, it takes us to another level.”
Mike Brown to coach East all stars
Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Mike Brown will coach the Eastern Conference team in the NBA All-Star Game, the first such honour of his career, the league announced.
Brown’s scheduled family vacation will be re-routed to Phoenix as he’ll become just the second coach in team history to have the honor, after Lenny Wilkens 20 years ago.
With the Celtics’ Doc Rivers not eligible because he was the coach last season, Brown gets the honor because the Cavs have assured the best winning percentage by Sunday’s decision day. He will coach against Phil Jackson of the Los Angeles Lakers.
“It’s the ultimate team award; I wouldn’t have been named without the guys in the locker room and I thank them; they’ve been great,” Brown said. “It’s a nice honor to go with LeBron’s family and friends and represent the Cavs organization.”
Cavaliers cath Clippers at wrong time
Zydrunas Ilgauskas returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ lineup Friday night, and that was bad news for the Clippers.
Ilgauskas scored 20 points and grabbed 11 rebounds in his first game back after sitting out a month because of a broken left ankle, as the Cavaliers improved to 22-0 at home with a 112-95 victory over the Clippers.
Cavaliers tops Clippers
With their big man back, the Cleveland Cavaliers looked much more like one of the NBA’s Eastern giants.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas scored 20 points with 11 rebounds in his first game in exactly one month because of a broken left ankle and LeBron James added 25 points as the Cavaliers remained perfect at home with a 112-95 win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Friday night.
One night after a frustrating loss at powerful Orlando, the Cavaliers improved to 22-0 on their own floor and tied the franchise record for the most consecutive home wins, set in the 1988-89 season.
Mo Williams added 23 points for Cleveland, now 9-0 after a loss.
Rookie Eric Gordon scored 27 for the Clippers, who stayed close for nearly three quarters before dropping their eighth straight road game as they began a seven-game trip. Los Angeles has lost 18 of 20.
Ilgauskas had hoped to return to the lineup on Thursday against the Magic. But although Ilgauskas traveled with the Cavaliers to Florida expecting to play, Cleveland coach Mike Brown sat his 7-foot-3 center against Orlando All-Star Dwight Howard, explaining that he didn’t want to subject Ilgauskas to playing on consecutive nights so soon.
Lebron James might be the best player in the league or the MVP but when it comes to NBA merchandise, Kobe Bryant has the most popular jersey.
The league’s rankings are based on sales at the NBA Store in New York City and NBAStore.com since the start of the 2008-09 season through January 2009.
Kobe Bryant regained the top spot on the NBA’s list, bumping 2008 No. 1 Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics to second.
LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers held the No. 3 spot on the list for the second consecutive season.
According to a league press release Tuesday, December was the best sales month in history for both the NBA Store and NBAStore.com, with combined sales up 10 percent over the same time period last year.
Last summer, Silas talked to the Bobcats and the Suns about their coaching openings. However, those plans were derailed when he had to go into the hospital with a blood clot and later had complications. Two years ago, he helped his wife recover from a hip replacement, which also had complications.
They’ve both recovered now, and Silas is starting to think about another coaching chance.
“I’d like to give it [one] more go before I’m done,” Silas said. “I’d love to help a team get back to respectability or take them to the next level. I’ve done it in the past, and I know I can do it again.”
[youtube width=”425″ height=”344″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euK3QrJB_es[/youtube]
It was a hot night for Mo Williams last night at the Q as the Cavaliers continued their winning streak at the Q to 21-0, to remain unbeaten at home.
Williams had 43 points, smashing his career high of 38 set two seasons ago with the Milwaukee Bucks. He hit seven 3-pointers, breaking his week-old career high of six in Portland. He had 11 assists, setting a new season high. He had eight rebounds, setting another season high.
Mo Williams beat Larry Hughes 40 points and became the only Cavaliers with 40+ points during the James’ era.
However, the Cavaliers found their defense against one of the league’s worst teams unacceptable.
“The last few games, we got the wins, I’m not saying let’s give these wins back,” Brown said. “But you start to see a trend like that, you have to make sure you address it, that’s part of my job. I know as a group we can do better on that end of the floor.”
Over the last five games, the Cavs have given up 47 percent shooting and 103 points per game.
“You can never been disappointed [with a win] but I’m not satisfied,” James said. “We took one step backwards tonight defensively and we don’t want to do that.”
James had 23 points on just 10 shots with a season-high 15 rebounds, 11 assists and three blocks.That’s Lebron 20th career triple-double.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas may be returning to action as soon as Thursday. Even though the Cavs obviously missed his length, his physical presence in the paint and his shooting touch, they scraped together enough wins during his absence to still contend for the best record in the NBA. In fact, the Cavs only trail the Lakers by a half game and they have a better winning percentage than the Celtics.
The Cavs were 19-3 when Ilgauskas injured his foot. They went 2-1 in the next three games without him and then won five games in a row when he came back. He was only sporadically effective, though, and after he produced eight points and five rebounds in a 104-95 loss to Miami the Cavs ran some more tests and discovered that Ilgauskas had a small fracture in his foot. Ilgauskas has not played since that time and the Cavs have gone 8-3 without him, losing to a horrible Wizards team, a mediocre Bulls team and the league-leading Lakers. The Cavs beat Boston and New Orleans at home and finished their Western road trip with three straight victories after the setback in L.A.
Although the Cavs have not lost much ground in the standings, they clearly did not play at the same level without Ilgauskas, not just because 19-3 is obviously a better record than 10-4 but also because when Ilgauskas was in the fold the Cavs were posting an astonishing point differential of better than 13 per game, which would have shattered the NBA record in that category (12.3 ppg, set by the 1971-72 Lakers). Now their point differential has dropped to 10.7 ppg overall (including 7.5 ppg in the past 11 games); that is still tremendous and still the best in the league this season but the drastic decline reflects that the Cavs have not only been losing more frequently but also that they have squeaked out some close decisions, including three wins out West by six points or less.
The two main players who picked up the slack for Ilgauskas were LeBron James and Anderson Varejao. James has reached double figures in rebounding five times in the past 11 games after doing so only twice in the first 31 games of the season. He has shifted to power forward and even center at times when the Cavs used a small lineup and he has narrowly passed Ilgauskas, Varejao and Ben Wallace to take over the team lead in rebounding for the season (7.4 rpg). Varejao took Ilgauskas’ place in the starting lineup and has been playing more minutes than usual. After not receiving much playing time early in the season, rookie J.J. Hickson has been pressed into service, taking over Varejao’s role as the first big man off of the bench. Hickson has played well at times but this is where injuries really affect a team; Varejao can capably replace Ilgauskas in the short term but then there is not anyone on the team who can fill Varejao’s old role.
When starting shooting guard Delonte West went down with a broken wrist five games ago the Cavs’ depth was once again tested but Sasha Pavlovic—a starter during the run to the Finals in 2007—has played well in West’s absence. Cleveland’s performance in the past month should forever put to rest any notion that this is simply a one man team. While James is indisputably playing at an MVP level, the Cavs legitimately have 10 players who can be productive members of a winning squad.
Cleveland faces Sacramento at the Q tonight before heading to Orlando to play the Magic for the first time this season. The Magic wreaked havoc during their recent trip out West—beating all three division leaders—so the Cavs could definitely use Big Z if he can return in time to match up with Dwight Howard.